Featured – CatholicVote.orghttps://www.catholicvote.org
The mission of CatholicVote.org is to educate and inspire Americans of all faiths to prioritize the issues of life, faith, and family.Mon, 19 Mar 2018 09:00:08 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.2The Catholic Vote Radio Hour is a program where the dogma lives loudly.CatholicVote.orgcleanepisodicCatholicVote.orgmercer@catholicvote.orgmercer@catholicvote.org (CatholicVote.org)No mules were harmed in the making of this episodeFeatured – CatholicVote.orghttp://catholicvote.org/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/cv-podcast-469.pnghttps://www.catholicvote.org/category/featured/
mercer@catholicvote.orgThe Catholic Vote Radio Hour is a program where the dogma lives loudly. Hours After Being Charged with 15 Felonies, David Daleiden Releases Yet Another Undercover Planned Parenthood Videohttps://www.catholicvote.org/hours-after-being-charged-with-15-felonies-david-daleiden-releases-yet-another-undercover-planned-parenthood-video/
https://www.catholicvote.org/hours-after-being-charged-with-15-felonies-david-daleiden-releases-yet-another-undercover-planned-parenthood-video/#commentsWed, 29 Mar 2017 19:03:54 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=12587Less than a day after California Attorney General Xavier Becerra issued 15 felony charges against David Daleiden for recording supposedly “confidential” conversations with Planned Parenthood staffers in 2015, the investigative journalist has released yet another damning undercover video.

The video features a conversation between a still-undercover David Daleiden and former Medical Director of Planned Parenthood Arizona Dr. DeShawn Taylor. The graphic discussion is mostly about obtaining intact human heads from aborted babies, and includes a shocking suggestion by Taylor: When a baby exits the womb still showing “signs of life,” it is “key” for the person performing the abortion to “pay attention to who’s in the room,” since Arizona state law forbids “any maneuvers after the fact to try to cause demise.”

Daleiden Didn’t Record a “Confidential” Conversation: Planned Parenthood Welcomed Him as a Baby-Parts Shopper

At the beginning of the video, Planned Parenthood Federation of America Senior Director of Medical Services Dr. Deborah Nucatola gives opening remarks at a “networking” event where abortion providers and “tissue” buyers are mingling. “I basically spend this reception running around introducing people to other people,” Nucatola tells her audience. “And that’s exactly why this meeting was created.”

The video then cuts to Nucatola personally introducing Daleiden and his colleague to Dr. DeShawn Taylor. “I have an abortion clinic in Arizona,” says Taylor. “Which is exactly why I brought these two gentlemen over,” Nucatola says.

Daleiden introduces himself as a representative of a company that does “tissue collection.” Nodding, Nucatola helpfully adds “And they’re looking for, Arizona as an area where they might be able to collaborate.”

“Oh cool!” exclaims Taylor.

Nucatola then leaves Daleiden and Taylor as they settle into an explicit conversation about body part procurement.

It’s “Key” for Abortionists to Make Sure Nobody Sees them Break the Law

When Daleiden says he is interested in tissue that is “pretty intact,” Taylor says that since she does dismemberment abortions, “we’d have to kinda talk about exactly what it is that you’re needing….”

“Part of the issue is, it’s not a matter of how I feel about it coming out intact,” Taylor continues. “But I gotta worry about my staff and, you know, people’s feelings about it coming out looking like a baby. …So yeah, that becomes an issue.”

Here, Daleiden explicitly asks if Taylor has ever had a case that “wants to come out intact” but she has to “make sure it doesn’t” so the staff doesn’t “freak out.” Nodding affirmatively, Taylor answers, “That’s one, and another issue is Arizona is so conservative, I just don’t even want to send a full fetus to, for cremation or any of that…”

“We have the people who do our paperwork for the fetal death certificates,” Taylor complains. “They email us calling them ‘babies’. Baby this, baby that, baby so-and-so. And I’m like, that’s creepy!”

Asked if she uses digoxin to terminate the fetus’s life, Taylor answers yes, starting at “20 weeks.” When Daleiden tells her this poison “ruins” the fetal body parts, Taylor exclaims “Oh, I mean—so the thing is, it’s really, and then that’s really an issue, because in Arizona, if the fetus comes out with any signs of life, we’re supposed to transport it. To the hospital.”

When Daleiden asks if there is “any standard procedure for verifying signs of life,” Taylor’s first response is “I mean the key is, you need to pay attention to who’s in the room, right?” With a sidelong glance and a grin, Taylor continues “…the thing is the law states that you’re not supposed to do any maneuvers after the fact to try to cause demise.”

“…It’s really tricky,” Taylor says. “Most of the time we [use digoxin], and it usually works. And then we don’t have to worry about that because Arizona State law says if any, if there’s any signs of life, then we’re supposed to transport them.”

Crushing Babies’ Heads is the Norm, But Planned Parenthood Could Try Not To If There’s Money In It

After complaining that “after 20 weeks,” performing abortions is hard on her biceps (it takes “more force”), Taylor notes that the “breech” or feet-first birth position “makes it a lot easier.” But even then there has to be some “decompression of the calvarium for it to come out,” Taylor says. In plain English: The babies’ heads have to be crushed.

So in order for Taylor to be able to provide an “intact” baby head, “the patient is going to have to go into labor,” she concludes. “Because generally, you know, especially in a breech presentation, everything’s going to come out and then the head’s going to get trapped.” When this happens, Taylor says she would normally “just take forceps and, you know, do the rest.” While there would usually be some crushing of the head, Taylor tells her would-be “buyer” that nonetheless “I think it’s worthwhile to explore.”

Daleiden explains that his firm will make sure she is compensated for providing baby heads. “…we return a portion of our researcher fees to the clinics, and private practices that work with us. Just ’cause, if we’re going to come in and do all this that we want to make it worth it, you know worthwhile for you, and make sure that it’s a partnership that benefits everybody.”

“Yeah, I’m absolutely, I’m definitely interested,” says Taylor.

“It is Very Interesting to See How It All Plays Out.” Is California’s Attorney General a Paid Flack for Planned Parenthood?

Before becoming attorney general, Becerra received money from Planned Parenthood during his congressional runs. According to opensecrets.org, Becerra received $1,035 from Planned Parenthood in 1998. In 2002, he received $1,000 from Planned Parenthood; in 2004, Becerra received $500 from Planned Parenthood, in 2012, Becerra received $2,000 from Planned Parenthood, and in 2014, he received $1,000.

“I feel pretty good,” Dr. DeShawn Taylor told Daleiden after their business discussion. “I mean my market share of the abortion services just—it continues to increase so …. It is very interesting to see how it all plays out.”

Taylor’s musings about profit seem obvious coming from an abortionist in a conversation about the buying and selling of baby body parts. But in another way, perhaps the California Attorney General could say the same.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/hours-after-being-charged-with-15-felonies-david-daleiden-releases-yet-another-undercover-planned-parenthood-video/feed/5It’s hard to take Sister Keehan seriouslyhttps://www.catholicvote.org/its-hard-to-take-sister-keehan-seriously/
https://www.catholicvote.org/its-hard-to-take-sister-keehan-seriously/#commentsFri, 24 Mar 2017 19:56:23 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=12521Moments ago, the House Republican leadership pulled their Obamacare replacement bill, called the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Before they pulled the bill, Sister Keehan attacked the ACHA as a pro-life “disaster.”

Sister Keehan is difficult to take seriously given her public opposition to the Bishops in providing cover for Obamacare, particularly when the threats identified by the Bishops, including funding of abortion and attacks on religious liberty materialized. Keehan traded these foundational issues, along with phony protections, for the promise of increased coverage, which has proven unworkable in its present form.

We can’t forget that Obamacare has failed miserably on almost every level. Even the touted coverage of the formerly uninsured is threatened by the insolvency of the program, the abandonment of markets by insurers, and the skyrocketing premiums for much of the middle class. There is nothing ‘pro-life’ about a program destined for failure, particularly for those that rely on it the most.

As to the pro-life elements that were included in the new bill, we wholeheartedly support the effort to de-fund Planned Parenthood. Doing so and re-directing those funds to community health centers is a win-win for pro-lifers and people who authentically care about women’s health.

The difficulty in unwinding Obamacare will not be easy. The transition, in any form, is going to involve difficult situations that partisans will exploit. Surely we can find a way to provide coverage to the most vulnerable, while allowing markets and competition to drive down premiums for everyone else. Whether it be tax credits, more market competition, block grants, or whatever. We now know a one-size, government-first solution for the entire country must be repealed as quickly as possible.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/its-hard-to-take-sister-keehan-seriously/feed/17A Day Without a Motherhttps://www.catholicvote.org/a-day-without-a-mother/
https://www.catholicvote.org/a-day-without-a-mother/#commentsMon, 06 Mar 2017 23:18:53 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=12369In the wealthy Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., at least one public school district has announced they will be closed on Wednesday, so that the overwhelmingly liberal, solidly middle-class (average salary: $72,705), and majority white instructional staff can have a day off to wear pink hats and shout obscenities about their lady parts. That’s quite the civics lesson. It also puts mothers who work outside the home in a pinch, especially when they are the sole breadwinners. However, in a way, this sham of a protest only serves to highlight what Pope Francis spoke of when he expressed concern about “feminist machismo.”

For many of the enormous number of single mothers in this country, taking a day off work is simply impossible. Thus, the biggest victim of the pink-hatted brigades will in fact be other women. The well-to-do and progressive mobs inside the beltway will not be demonstrating for women’s rights so much as demonstrating their white privilege and the luxury of liberal virtue-signaling. Single mothers will still have to go to work, arrange for alternate child care, feed, bathe, clothe, and otherwise keep their children safe and alive for the whole 24 hours of the so-called “Day Without A Woman.” For them, this preposterous spectacle only adds insult to injury.

Furthermore, in a deeper sense, without mothers, none of us would be here. Women, and women alone, have the awesome and sacred capacity to participate with God in the miracle of creation of new life, to nurture and to protect it as it grows in the earliest stages, and then, outside the womb, to literally give of themselves to the child through breastfeeding. Whether women are teachers or astronauts, CEOs or plumbers, soldiers or doctors (or both), scientists or chefs, maids or pilots, politicians or homemakers, they, and they alone have the capacity to be mothers.

Whatever their profession or vocation, and whether or not they are able to physically bear children, Pope Francis exhorts all women to be motherly and fruitful in whatever they do, because unlike the machismo of perfect equality, the true dignity of women recognizes their essential difference from men. Anyone who celebrates this decision obviously has the luxury of arranging child care on short notice, which in itself seems a bit hypocritical, unless they plan on giving their nannies the day off as well. Unlike the evidently expendable teachers who are protesting, mothers don’t get to take a day off.

President Trump called education the “the civil rights issue of our time.” And he called on Congress to make school choice possible — especially for low-income students.

Of course the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty are foundational issues. Protecting innocent children in the womb will always be paramount. We had hoped President Trump would have mentioned this. But when it comes to transforming culture, a revolution in education could truly help change everything.

Many public schools are failing our kids, especially low-income children. Furthermore, left-wing ideologies on family, sex, race, and gender are now pervasive in many schools.
Families deserve a choice!

Our bishops have been very clear in calling for solutions to this problem:

“Parents—the first and most important educators—have a fundamental right to choose the education best suited to the needs of their children, including public, private, and religious schools. Government, through such means as tax credits and publicly funded scholarships, should help provide resources for parents, especially those of modest means, to exercise this basic right without discrimination.”

Parents, not the government, are the primary educators of children.

For the first time in decades, the possibility of school choice is real. Opponents will viciously attack any effort to break the public school monopoly. But the evidence is clear: school choice benefits all children, sparks competition between schools, increases educational quality across the board, and creates room for innovation.

Later this week, the President will attend a “listening session” at St. Andrew Catholic School in Orlando, where hundreds of low-income students are able to attend through scholarships made possible by a state tax credit.

A similar federal tax credit option is now being discussed in Washington D.C. to benefit children in EVERY state in America. This option would enable qualified families to send their kids to the school of their choice — including religious schools.

Your CV Team is working with legislative leaders and key groups helping to push this agenda forward.

A person involved in the process yesterday remarked to me: Catholic schools may have a big problem very soon. There may not be enough open seats to welcome the flood of new students.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/the-biggest-takeaway-for-catholics-in-trumps-speech/feed/2Despite Bathroom Order, Public Schools are Still Going Down the Toilethttps://www.catholicvote.org/despite-bathroom-order-public-schools-are-still-going-down-the-toilet/
https://www.catholicvote.org/despite-bathroom-order-public-schools-are-still-going-down-the-toilet/#commentsThu, 23 Feb 2017 16:25:33 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=12232President Trump’s reversal of his predecessor’s ham-fisted attempt to enforce a nationwide policy of transgender accommodations in our schools does not mean the “Bathroom Wars” are over, not by a long shot. Despite historic setbacks at the federal and state levels, liberals still maintain largely uncontested one-party rule in our cities and school boards. Whatever the actions within the Trump Administration, the culture of relativism which even goes so far as to deny objective truths of biological reality remains dominant. Faced with this daunting challenge, faithful American Catholic families must now put forth an exceptional effort to provide for a robust and solid education for our children in a way that we have not had to do in many decades, or perhaps since frontier times.

It is by now a cliché that public schools are rife with all manner of social experiments at the expense of what was previously understood to be their core mission of basic grammar, arithmetic, art, history, and science education. There are numerous examples of math and grammar homework questions which have departed from the mundane formulae of two trains leaving St. Louis or stories about Jack and Jane playing with a ball which once formed the universal common experience of primary education in favor of radical progressive subtexts promoting LGBTQ or Islamic agendas. In higher education, our Western civilizational patrimony of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Chaucer, Cervantes, and Shakespeare is no longer taught because these literary and philosophical giants supposedly represent the patriarchal oppression of white men.

Given this morass of education today, even many non-Catholic families in urban areas prefer to send their children to private schools. As a consequence, many Catholic parish schools have a minority of Catholic students and although they may try to promote a strong Catholic identity, there is a tension between the Catholic mission to raise strong families formed by the faith as well as our duty to care for the corporal needs of our fellow man regardless of religion. Additionally, while voucher programs are a great boon to Catholic schools by reducing the financial burden of a quality education for families that would not otherwise have the means to do so, in the short term, this only intensifies the competition for scarce resources and distorts the costs of private school in general. In time, this may lead to building more schools and expanding admissions to meet the demand, but for now, many parents do not have this option.

As a consequence, homeschooling is becoming more attractive and not only for Catholics. Whether to escape progressive indoctrination, or simply because of the dismal outcomes of public schools, or because the high cost of private school makes it unattainable for many, homeschooling is a difficult but also rewarding choice for parents. Despite stereotypes, there is ample evidence which shows that homeschooled children have better social skills than their classroom-educated peers, as well as better academic outcomes. The challenge for many parents is how to structure a curriculum, a need which is met by numerous online resources such as the Mother of Divine Grace School, the Angelicum Academy, the Thomas Aquinas Academy, the Seton Home Study School and many others. For parents looking for a hybrid approach that provides some classroom time to augment home study without the high cost of traditional private schools, there is also the Regina Caeli program which has many physical locations around the country and continues to expand.

As Catholic parents entrusted with the formation of faith and intellectual curiosity of our children, sending them to public schools is to cast them into a brood of vipers who are ready to poison their minds and strangle their creative spirit with joyless conformity to a totalitarian leftist ideology. This politicization of every aspect of life not only reigns in academia, but in the media and entertainment industry, and is even beginning to gain a foothold in the world of sports, despite the obvious fact that in a contest of raw physical ability, the innate differences between the sexes cannot be imagined away by wishful thinking. Fortunately, faithful Catholic parents have choices that make the “Bathroom Wars” largely irrelevant, at least during the tender and formative years of our children’s education.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/despite-bathroom-order-public-schools-are-still-going-down-the-toilet/feed/15Does Catholic Social Teaching Require Ever More Government Regulation?https://www.catholicvote.org/does-catholic-social-teaching-require-ever-more-government-regulation/
https://www.catholicvote.org/does-catholic-social-teaching-require-ever-more-government-regulation/#commentsWed, 08 Feb 2017 20:59:59 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=12061President Trump’s pledge to reduce regulations on our economy has led to panic among some Catholic scholars and prelates, who imply that Catholic social teaching calls for ever more government regulation. According to a recent story in Our Sunday Visitor, for instance, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy treated the president’s promises of deregulation as “imminent threats”—as the result of an “erroneous autonomy” that denies the “dignity of the human person and the common good.”

These claims misrepresent both the nature and content of Catholic social teaching. It’s not a partisan political platform. Nor is it a cudgel with which to beat your political opponents and to silence debate. It provides a set of general principles—such as subsidiarity, the common good, human dignity, and private property—that must be applied to concrete situations, and refracted through prudential judgments about science and economics on which faithful Catholics disagree.

You can spend the next year reading papal encyclicals and the Catechism, and you’ll never find the principle “more regulation good, less regulation bad.”

Since 2008, our economy has been burdened with over 20,000 new regulations. This added some 572,000 pages to the Federal Register. Did these new regulations move America closer to the Catholic ideal? Were all of them required by Catholic social teaching? Is any call to reform any of them a denial of human dignity? To ask such questions is to answer them.

When Regulations Attack

In fact, it would be embarrassing if Catholic social teaching did contain such a preferential option for government regulations. After all, regulations aren’t generic commodities. Some are good, some are bad, and some are indifferent. So how do we tell the difference? By studying the consequences, rather than the stated intentions of their advocates. For instance, if an anti-pollution law keeps a paper mill from polluting the water of land owners nearby, by aligning the incentives of all involved, with less drag on the paper market than any live alternative, then it’s probably a good regulation.

Unfortunately, the fiscal, moral, and cultural costs of many regulations exceed their benefits. The takings provision of the Endangered Species Act, for instance, encourages land owners to destroy rather than preserve habitats for endangered species.

Many of our eighty means-tested welfare programs encourage idleness rather than work, and single rather than married motherhood for recipients. Indeed, to judge from its long-term effects, President Johnson’s War on Poverty might just as well have been called the War on the Poor. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act added a work requirement to just one of these programs. Opponents howled that it would create an epidemic of homelessness and poverty among single mothers and their children. Instead, they found jobs, dignity, and a way out of poverty.

Under President Obama, however, even that modest reform was undone, while work requirements for food stamps were waived away in 2009 as part of Obama’s “stimulus” program. As a result, the program has exploded, especially among ABAWDs—able-bodied adults without dependents. Our government “safety net” should encourage and, if needed, subsidize work. Instead, it often does just the opposite.

The barrage of well-meaning “affordable housing” regulations added in the decades leading up to 2008 eroded the underwriting standards in the mortgage market, played a key role in the 2008 financial crisis, and encouraged vice rather than virtue among developers, mortgage lenders, and loan recipients. The Dodd-Frank Act, which was supposed to help prevent another such crisis, created a subtle preference for banks that were already treated as too big to be allowed to fail, to grow even larger and more protected.

The regulations added just since the beginning of 2008 have cost our economy almost a trillion dollars. That affects real people who need real jobs. According to one study, there was a net increase of 421,000 new businesses from 1992 to 1996, and 405,000 from 2002-2006. In contrast, 2009, 2010, and 2011 “saw a net loss of new companies year-over-year—the first time in a generation.” The regulatory burden is at least partly to blame.

Mid-sized companies traditionally have sought the cash to expand by going public in an initial public offering (IPO). Now such companies increasingly seek to be acquired by a larger company. This risk aversion is what you would expect when regulations make it harder to launch and then grow new ventures.

And do I really need to mention the Affordable Care Act, with its egregious ‘HHS mandate,” which, if left in place, would have compelled the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide abortifacients and contraceptives in their health insurance program? Talk about a bad regulation.

So, must good Catholics support every deregulation that President Trump proposes? Of course not. It’s rarely that simple. If we care about our fellow citizens, however, we should take the time to study the real effects of any given regulation, rather than falling for misleading claims that Catholic social teaching treats each new regulation as a good that must be protected.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/does-catholic-social-teaching-require-ever-more-government-regulation/feed/15Arguing in Good Faithhttps://www.catholicvote.org/arguing-in-good-faith/
https://www.catholicvote.org/arguing-in-good-faith/#commentsFri, 03 Feb 2017 18:47:52 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=12017Left-leaning media is responding with the usual and expected outrage to speculation that the Trump Administration is preparing a religious freedom executive order which would, among other things, lift the restrictions imposed by President Obama on government contracts and grants to religious charities and organizations, and also strengthen conscience protections for government employees. However, instead of condemning such a proposal, liberals should be the first to advocate for it, because it merely echoes the many of the things that they’ve been saying for the past several months.

Earlier this week, in response to the temporary ban on issuing visas to seven war-torn countries, Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine suddenly became a champion of the First Amendment and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777. Never mind that the executive order does not mention any religion and that Muslims from dozens of other countries remain free to travel to the United States. If Tim Kaine says he supports religious freedom, then we should take him at his word and assume that he would also endorse an order which would further protect the rights of Muslims who are employed or do business with the federal government.

Then there is the case of now-former acting Attorney General Sally Yates who, in the eyes of some liberals, went out in a blaze of glory for instructing the Department of Justice not to enforce the President’s immigration order. Most legal experts, even on the left, agree that as an officer of the government, resignation would have been the correct and honorable response. However, while officers of the government must carry out the law, they also should not face punishment or reprisals simply for holding unpopular views. The order would also require the government to accommodate religious practices of government employees, such as the Muslim call to prayer or the Sikh prohibition against shaving facial hair.

This executive order would not apply to private businesses like bakers, florists, photographers, or random small-town pizza parlors. Rather, the organizations which would be covered by the order are only those with an explicitly religious mission and character. However, that won’t stop the left from going back to their favorite tactic of comparing deeply-held and sincere religious convictions to apartheid or Jim Crow. The funny thing is, liberals in Hawaii, New Mexico, and Washington, D.C., had no problem suggesting that private businesses are entirely within their rights to turn away Trump supporters.

It is telling that the left employs Orwellian language to describe the proposed order as having precisely the opposite effect of what it would actually do. One headline screams that it would allow the government to “fire based on religion” another that it would “literally [sic] come for everybody.” In fact, the objective of such an order is to prevent the government from singling out religious minorities for harsher treatment. Liberals must base their attacks on fear and misinformation, because if they were honest about their position, its logical contradictions would immediately become obvious.

If the people protesting at airports against what they erroneously call a “Muslim ban” are truly arguing in good faith, then they should support an action which would restore the ability of government to work with Muslim charities, schools, and community groups to promote social justice and the common good without dictating that they violate their religious beliefs. They can’t have it both ways. Religious freedom is not some rhetorical gimmick to toss into arguments only when it suits liberal purposes. Religious freedom is the supreme law upon which all other liberties are founded. Religious freedom is for everyone, all the time, and especially when it protects the unpopular views of the minority.

Gorsuch, 49, was appointed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver by President George W. Bush. He has an outstanding track record of faithfully applying the law and defending the Constitution — including in two cases where he ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor — upholding religious liberty for all.

Here are several reasons why CatholicVote supports the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court:

Gorsuch is well-regarded as a top legal mind and is considered to be one of the best writers on the federal bench. He graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School — and later studied at Oxford where he completed a doctorate in philosophy under renowned Catholic natural law scholar John Finnis.

While he has never ruled directly on an abortion case, in his 2006 book exploring the legal questions involved in assisted suicide, Gorsuch observed that: “In Roe, the Court explained that, had it found the fetus to be a ‘person’ for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, it could not have created a right to abortion because no constitutional basis exists for preferring the mother’s liberty interests over the child’s life.”

In that same book, Gorsuch wrote: “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”

Judge Gorsuch sided with pro-life Utah Gov. Gary Herbert on procedural grounds in his lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, which sued after they were cut off from state funding.

On two separate court cases involving Obama’s notorious HHS mandate, Judge Gorsuch sided with Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor. He stressed the need of religious organizations to have broad freedom to determine the requirements of their faith.

In another religious liberty case Summum v. Pleasant Grove City, Judge Gorsuch wrote that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause did not prevent local governments from honoring religious speech through a Ten Commandments monument. And when the Supreme Court ultimately took the same side as Judge Gorsuch, it was Justice Scalia who “articulated very similar views” to Gorsuch, according to SCOTUSBlog.

Perhaps the best articulation of Neil Gorsuch’s philosophy is an excellent article he wrote in 2005 for National Review. Gorsuch wrote: “[R]ather than use the judiciary for extraordinary cases … American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education.”

This is a judge who gets it.

Gorsuch understands the role of the judiciary and its constitutional limits.

And he understands the three most important words of the Constitution.

Secondly, unlike most of the shouting on the Internet now underway, perhaps we could begin by assuming some goodwill among people on both sides of this issue. To start, President Trump did NOT sign a ‘Muslim ban’ or anything like it. He has pledged to protect America, and justifiably so, given the threat of terrorism here and around the world. He has not signaled a permanent change to our history as a nation that welcomes immigrants, or a country that can, and should, be a place of refuge for those fleeing persecution, war, or simply pursuing a better life.

…yet he has suspended refugee programs for 90 days from 7 different countries with terrorist connections — to review the vetting process.

In fairness, we should also assume goodwill on the part of those opposed to the Executive Order — at least for those not attempting to score cheap political points. Many well-intentioned opponents are not acting to make America less safe, or more vulnerable to terrorism. There are people of goodwill with legitimate concerns that the Executive Order may result in harm to vulnerable people attempting to flee persecution and violence. Imagine, for example, if you were a Christian family attempting to flee your country to protect your children from the bloody hands of ISIS.

How should Catholics respond?

At the center of the recent order is a federal government process which we are not qualified to evaluate, namely, the ‘vetting’ of refugees. Is the process working? Is it safe? Is the information provided by the countries of origin reliable?

President Trump is clearly skeptical. And he believes the best way to get it right is to place a pause on all refugees from these seven countries for 90 days — similar to what President Obama did in 2011 with refugees from Iraq — where the loudest opponents of Trump today were noticeably silent.

Opponents point to those caught in the crossfire, such as students, families, or Muslims working with our military who were implicated by the temporary suspension. Further revisions to the executive order might be required to accommodate certain circumstances.

Quite often when confronted by difficult political questions, we return to the Catechism for guidance. Here again are the relevant portions on this issue.

Be sure to read both paragraphs:

CCC 2241 “The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.”

So what is our take?

A terrorist attack on American soil, like those in Europe, perpetrated by terrorists who exploit refugee programs is not an imaginary threat. For this reason, we are inclined to defer to the President and allow him to make certain that the vetting process is working properly during the next 90 days.

We also are hopeful, and confident, that once this review is completed, refugees from these countries can begin anew.

America must continue to be a land that welcomes all people yearning to breathe free.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/trump-refugees-and-catholics/feed/20Mexico City Policy Just Spared the Lives of Countless Preborn Africanshttps://www.catholicvote.org/mexico-city-policy-just-spared-the-lives-of-countless-preborn-africans/
https://www.catholicvote.org/mexico-city-policy-just-spared-the-lives-of-countless-preborn-africans/#commentsWed, 25 Jan 2017 20:49:14 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=11880On January 23rd, day one of Trump’s presidency and the day after the 44th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which bans American funding for abortion providers abroad. The organization hardest hit by this decision is Marie Stopes International (MSI), the world’s leading abortion provider, which for years has been heavily funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

MSI immediately released a statement decrying President Trump’s pro-life move. “As a result, our organisation will be prohibited from receiving any new funding” from USAID, they complained. “In 2017, USAID funding would have helped us reach 1.5 million women in some of the poorest, most underserved countries in the world.”

The statement goes on to warn that “without alternative funding, the loss of our services during Trump’s first term, between 2017 and 2020, could result in … 2.1 million unsafe abortions.” MSI has pulled out all the stops to fight recent efforts against its agenda. It is a very powerful organization, and its greatest weapons are deceit and fearmongering threats.

Read Between the Lies: Many Unborn Lives will be Spared in 2017

Take MSI’s work in Africa for example.

A petition created by Culture of Life Africa in partnership with CitizenGo reports:

A bombshell news report shows that Marie Stopes International (MSI) — the largest global abortion provider in the English-speaking world — is committing illegal abortions in Uganda and other African countries [where abortion is officially banned].

“There was no help [for women],” says Desire Kirabo, the former manager of an MSI clinic in Hoima, Uganda. “Their service was abortion.”

In fact, Marie Stopes even admits that they perform illegal abortions: Paul Cornelissen, MSI Programme Director for South Africa, admitted to attendees at a conference in 2007 that “We do illegal abortions all over the world.” As recently as 2012, Zambia banned MSI from operating in its territory after the organization perpetrated over 500 illegal abortions there.

MSI has a long history of using menacing rhetoric to gain control over vulnerable women in Africa. The abortion giant presents itself as a savior and warns that unless it is granted power over their unborn children, life for African women will be torture.

But once MSI gains a foothold, it quickly becomes the torturer.

I mean that quite literally. As we reported here at CatholicVote, whistleblower Desire Kirabo’s testimony “is harrowing, and will be sure to outrage the public in just the same way David Daleiden’s now-famous Planned Parenthood videos did:”

Kirabo says that most of her MSI center’s clients were abortion clients, that they were given abortions quickly and not offered any other options, and that most of the abortion victims were young girls, “sometimes” even underage.

These poor girls were brought into a room which Kirabo simply calls “the abortion room.” The abortions were not even performed by a doctor, but by a medical assistant. “They use manual vacuum aspiration,” Kirabo told Ekeocha. “It’s a very painful procedure …[The girls] cry, they scream out loud.” The MSI staff kept a radio in the room, and they would turn it up to a high volume to drown out the girls’ screams.

Again, abortion is illegal in Uganda.

Obama Boosted MSI’s Mission of “Killing Africa.”
Under Trump, the Pro-Life Movement Can Help Save Africa

Exactly eight years before President Trump’s first day in office, on January 23rd, 2009, a newly-inaugurated President Barack Obama rescinded the Mexico City Policy. As Life News’s Steven Ertelt reported at the time, Marie Stopes International was “the biggest beneficiary, along with American abortion business Planned Parenthood, of President Barack Obama overturning the Mexico City Policy. Naturally, MSI officials distributed a press release applauding the decision.”

For their part, the mainstream American media could barely contain their applause, and painted a horrid picture of MSI’s good work being “gagged” under the policy Obama revoked. As one AP article reported, “the country director for Marie Stopes Kenya … said his family planning organization had been limping along on European aid because of the U.S. rule Obama overturned on Jan. 23 in one of his first presidential acts.”

Thanks to Obama’s decision, MSI has spent years using American taxpayer dollars to perpetrate what Ekeocha calls a “modern day eugenics to ensure that only the planned, the privileged and the perfect are born into the world.”

In a 2013 report, MSI boasted of “how we have grown and developed over the past five years (2009-2013),” in part by boosting MSI’s response to women’s “abortion-related needs.”

The report included a graph showing a vast increase in “safe abortion and post-abortion care services” since President Obama had taken office in 2009:

Trump May Have Just Saved Millions of Unborn Lives
Sign the Petition to Save More

MSI routinely downplays the fact that it pushes abortions and absurdly argues that it saves millions of lives that would otherwise be lost in “unsafe abortions.” In 2015 alone, MSI claims to have “averted” four million “unsafe abortions.” How? In part “by increasing access to safe abortion services.”

It’s clear that MSI only solves African women’s problems by “killing Africa,” illegally aborting preborn children in a manner that can hardly be called “safe” at all.

Less than two weeks before President Trump renewed the Mexico City Policy, a petition was created to demand that taxpayer-funded donors to MSI cut off the organization’s funds. The petition quickly gained nearly 20,000 signatures from 72 countries, including 28 African countries. (Please sign the petition here!)

Trump’s renewal of the Mexico City Policy is a great beginning, but it only puts a dent in MSI’s taxpayer funding. The policy will cut off the 17 percent of MSI’s funding that USAID supplies, but U.K. taxpayers will continue to support MSI whether they like it or not until the campaign to defund the abortion giant prevails.